Conflict and Decision Making in Close Relationships: Love, Money and Daily Routines

273 Pages·2001·3.621 MB·English

by  Erich Kirchler

CONFLICT AND DECISION-MAKING
IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS
European Monographs in Social Psychology
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Published
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Willem Doise, Alain Clemence, and Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi
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Jean-Le´on Beauvois and Robert-Vincent Joule
The Social Psychology of Collective Action
Caroline Kelly and Sara Breinlinger
Social Context and Cognitive Performance
Jean-Marc Monteil and Pascal Huguet
Conflict and Decision-Making in Close Relationships
Erich Kirchler, Christa Rodler, Erik Ho¨lzl, and Katja Meier
Forthcoming Titles
Social Development and Adult Identity
John Bynner, Nick Emler, and David Romney
Attitudes of Mind: The Pragmatic Theory of Rational Cognition
Maria Lewicka and Karl Halvor Teigen
Stereotyping as Inductive Hypothesis Testing
Klaus Fiedler and Eva Walthier
Conflict and decision-making
in close relationships
Love, money and daily routines
Erich Kirchler,
Christa Rodler, Erik Ho¨lzl, and Katja Meier
UniversityofVienna,Austria
First published 2001
by Psychology Press
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Psychology Press
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Psychology Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an Informa business
(cid:216) 2001 by Psychology Press Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conflict and decision-making in close relationships : love, money, and
daily routines /
Erich Kirchler . . . [et al.].
p. cm.—(European monographs in social psychology ISSN 0892-7286)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-86377-811-9
1. Marriage—Decision making. 2. Couples—Decision making.
3. Households—Decision making. I. Kirchler, Erich. II. Series.
HQ728 .C617 2000
306.81—dc21
00-042546
ISBN: 978-0-86377-811-7
Cover design by Amanda Barragry
Typeset in Times by Mayhew Typesetting, Rhayader, Powys
Contents
Preface vii
1. Decisions in the Shared Home 1
The Vienna Diary Study 2
Case studies from the Vienna Diary Study: stories of three
decisions 5
From desires, discussions, and disagreements to decisions 13
2. Love, Money, and Everyday Matters 15
Love 16
Money 25
Everyday matters 33
3. Close Relationships 39
Uniqueness of close relationships 39
Partners’ aims and obligations 46
Relationship structures 48
Models of interaction 57
4. Decision-making 69
Disagreements versus decision-making processes 69
Types of decision-making 71
Models of decision-making 78
5. Methods for Studying Decision-making 89
Observation in the laboratory and in private settings 91
Interview techniques 95
Diaries 110
6. Close Relationships and Influence in Decisions 135
Interaction and disagreements over everyday matters 135
The influence of partners in conflicts and decision-making 142
v
vi CONTENTS
7. Close Relationships and Decision Dynamics 161
The interconnectedness of decisions 161
Influence tactics 184
Decision outcomes: sense, fairness, and satisfaction 211
8. Summary 227
References 237
Author Index 257
Subject Index 261
Preface
Love,money,andeverydaymattersinthesharedhomearethetopicsofthis
work. The routines of everyday life in close relationships are described,
analysed and interpreted using psychological concepts.
Romanticrelationshipsontheonehand,andtheprocessesandresultsof
decision-making on the other, have long attracted the interest of social
research scientists. Decisions in close relationships have, however, been
neglected, particularly everyday decision-making involving couples and
children. Close relationships have been studied for clinical-psychological
reasons, in order to understand dysfunctional processes and to develop
targeted intervention programmes. Meanwhile research into decision-
making has offered wide scope to economists and social scientists. It has
helpedthemtounderstandtherelationshipbetweeneconomicprocessesand
humanbehaviourpatternsingeneral.Thestudyofdecision-makinginclose
relationshipsisexpectedtomakeacontributiontothewiderunderstanding
of such relationships, since the relationship is reflected in joint decisions,
even about financial matters, and the manner in which the joint decision is
taken indicates the quality of the relationship. In addition, analysis of joint
decision-making explains how partners operate in situations where
resources are scarce, and how they jointly seek to realise economic and
relationship goals.
Thestudiesofdecision-making,andparticularlyofpurchasingdecisions,
in private households summarised here are drawn from the period going
back to the start of the 1980s. For almost 20 years research on household
decision-makinghasbeenconductedattheUniversitiesofLinzandVienna,
Austria.Afterseveralyearsofresearch,someofthefocusesofresearchand
the underlying processes now seem clear and comprehensible. However,
scientific studies set up to explore and test hypotheses repeatedly throw up
new questions, requiring deeper and more comprehensive analysis. Further
studiesandmore precisequestioninghavebroughtusevercloser toafocus
vii
viii PREFACE
on the actual pattern of decision-making in close relationships, and we
hoped ultimately to reach the point where we could present an empirically
based overview that would do justice to the complexities of everyday life in
thehomeandwhichwouldoffera‘‘manageablemodel’’fordecision-making
inrelationships.However,thelatestresearchwork,theViennaDiaryStudy,
which was intended to provide answers to the many unsolved questions we
hadgathered,showedthattherealitycannotberepresentedinamodel,not
even a complex one, without a worrying amount of simplification.
Moreover, increasing dissection of joint decisions drew our attention
deeperintothefocusofresearch,withtheresultthatultimatelythesenseof
overview was in danger of being lost, thereby raising the question of
appropriate distance between the researcher and the focus of the research.
When a landscape is surveyed from an aeroplane, or viewed from the
highestmountain-top,oranalysedonawalkthroughit,itremainsthesame
focus of research, but the perspective changes according to the visible
elementsanddetails,andtheirrelationshiptooneanother.Insomeresearch
areaswemaybetooclosetothecouples’decisions,butwhatistheoptimal
distance? When does proximity obscure what we are looking at rather than
revealing further details?
Thisbookisdividedintofivemainchapterswhichfollow achapterona
phenomenologicalstudyofdecision-makingasreportedbythreecouplesin
theViennaDiaryStudy,togetherwithachapterondefinitionsandoutlines
coveringlove,money,andeverydaymatters.Thefivemainchapterslookat
romantic relationships, decision-making, methods of researching decision-
making in private everyday life, influence in decision-making in close
relationships, and decision dynamics. Where we talk of romantic relation-
ships, we look at goals, structures, and the dynamics of the relationship. In
the chapter about decision-making we discuss the processes and topics
involved. A lengthy chapter is devoted to methods of researching decision-
making, because partners in close relationships may react to outside
observers in such a way that intrusion into the private sphere negates the
purpose of the research. Finally decision-making, particularly financial
decision-making, by couples is discussed: We look at the relative influence
of the partners, the interconnectedness of activities within the home, the
tacticsused togaininfluence andtheresults ofdisagreementsanddecision-
making. Earlier studies are quoted, but the main focus is the results of the
Vienna Diary Study of 1996–1999, which are reported extensively.
We end this preface with words of thanks to the numerous friends,
colleaguesandinstitutionsthathavesupportedourwork.Ourthanksgoto
all those who have spurred us on to further work by their pertinent ques-
tioning, and to those whose critical questions have pressed us to provide
more precise answers. Many people, mainly couples and their children,
made themselves available to us as participants or ‘‘interested researchers’’
PREFACE ix
in numerous studies, and they deserve our special thanks. In particular, we
wish to thank Rupert Brown at the University of Kent at Canterbury,
whose commissioning of this work as part of his series of books on social
psychology began the whole process.
Thiswork,andinparticulartheViennaDiaryStudy,wasgivenfinancial
assistance by the Austrian research funding agency Fonds zur Fo¨rderung
wissenschaftlicher Forschung under the project title ‘‘P11242-OEK’’. We
thank all those working at the agency for their unstinting support.
The diary project was carried out at the Institute for Psychology at the
University of Vienna, with the assistance of Tanja Auenhammer, Ernestine
Georgeacopol, Regina Rettig, Astrid Tietz, and Judith Ulm. We owe them
much thanks for their tireless work during a lengthy period of research. In
particular,wethankBorisMaciejovsky,whocastacriticaleyeoverthetext
and made many suggestions for improvements.
Finally we give our thanks to Vivien Ward at Routledge, Taylor &
Francis for her friendly encouragement.
All scientists, especially those engaged in the study of social phenomena
and particularlyof close relationships,are called upon to uselanguagethat
isgender-neutral.Toimprovethereadabilityofthetextwehavechosennot
to use repetitions (female/male partner, she and he, etc.), and have usually
used the male singular form throughout. It should be understood that
statements apply equally to women and men, unless there is explicit
reference to specific gender differences.
Erich Kirchler,
Christa Rodler, Erik Ho¨lzl and Katja Meier
Vienna, April 2000